


skin and bones

by thefoxholecycle



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Eating Disorders, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan looking after Adam, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefoxholecycle/pseuds/thefoxholecycle
Summary: Ronan raised an eyebrow, unconvinced by Adam’s attempt to play down the fact that something was clearly seriously wrong. Adam finally looked up to meet his eye, but immediately looked away upon seeing the question that was still written on his face. Ronan reached out and put his hand over Adam’s. For a moment it looked like Adam would pull away and Ronan felt something twist in his stomach, but he didn’t, and Ronan put his other hand on Adam’s knee as if he was trying to keep him from bolting.Adam comes home from college and Ronan notices he hasn't been looking after himself, so Ronan does it for him.Rightfully should be a oneshot but bear with me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something like this for ages cause I like angst too much. Apologies for making Adam sad, I know he deserves all the happiness.  
> I'm posting this right after I wrote it and I don't know anyone willing to beta it for me so I appreciate feedback!
> 
> Please be aware that this might be triggering for you if you have or have had an eating disorder. If you think reading this might trigger you, please go read something else. I myself have other, not-ED-related fics. If you need to talk to someone, my tumblr is foxholeravens and you can find me there if you so wish.

Adam had just arrived home to the Barns for the holidays, and Ronan wished he never had to leave again. As soon as he had heard Adam’s shitty Hondayota pull up in the driveway, he had broken his promise to himself not to be embarrassingly over the top and ran outside, tackling Adam with a hug from behind as he was getting his bags out of his car. It took them at least twenty minutes to finish greeting each other- or rather, making out, and actually take Adam’s things inside. 

They were now sat leaning against the wall of an empty cow shed, Adam leaning into Ronan’s side, Ronan’s arm around his shoulders. They had been walking and talking, catching up on all of the details of the past months they hadn’t had a chance to tell each other, while Opal was in her room, chewing on a toy that Adam had brought her. Eventually Adam had decided he was tired. The currently empty shed had been close by, so they went inside to protect them from the wind while they rested. The two had sat down and eventually fallen silent, not having run out of stories to tell, but simply wanting to pause to enjoy each other’s presence. Ronan didn’t think he’d been this relaxed since Adam had left for college. He moved his other hand so that it was resting on Adam’s side, and rested his cheek on the top of the other boy’s head. Adam sighed softly. 

It took a few more minutes before Ronan realised that he could feel every one of Adam’s ribs through his red t-shirt. He frowned. Adam had been skinny before, obviously, but not like this.  
“Parrish, the fuck? Did you lose weight?” Ronan tried to disguise the intense worry in his voice behind a mask of annoyance, but even he could tell it didn’t really work. Adam shifted and turned sideways to face Ronan, and Ronan’s hands fell away from around him. Ronan wondered if that had been what Adam was trying to do.

“Uh, maybe I guess,” Adam said, not meeting Ronan’s eyes as he spoke, “I’ve been busy working. Sometimes I just don’t get the time to get food. Don’t worry about it.” 

Ronan raised an eyebrow, unconvinced by Adam’s attempt to play down the fact that something was clearly seriously wrong. Adam finally looked up to meet his eye, but immediately looked away upon seeing the question that was still written on his face. Ronan reached out and put his hand over Adam’s. For a moment it looked like Adam would pull away and Ronan felt something twist in his stomach, but he didn’t, and Ronan put his other hand on Adam’s knee as if he was trying to keep him from bolting. 

“What’s going on?” This time, the annoyance in Ronan’s voice was replaced by concern, quickly building up into fear. To his relief, Adam didn’t try to dodge his question again.  
“I don’t know, I guess I’m just stressed, you know? I always have something to do and I never feel like I have the time to take a break, even if it’s just small. I need to do well, I can’t stand the idea of not passing this course…” Adam trailed off, and Ronan waited for him to continue. “I kind of feel guilty, like I shouldn’t be shouldn’t be eating or sleeping when I could be doing work. I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this was going on?” This question was not born of annoyance that Adam hadn’t said anything, but more of Ronan’s regret that he hadn’t known, hadn’t been able to help. 

“I don’t know. I’m sorry” 

“Hey. Don’t apologise. You think I’d be fucking mad at you? Fuck no, Parrish” Ronan faked annoyance, and Adam laughed. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that laugh. “Come on. We’re going back to the house.” Ronan stood, and waited for Adam to do the same before striding off, Adam hurrying to catch up to him. 

Halfway there, Adam stumbled, and Ronan caught his arm before he could crumple to the ground. Adam went to carry on walking, but he stopped and turned around when he didn’t hear Ronan following. Ronan was staring at him, an emotion on his face that Adam couldn’t quite name. 

“When was the last time you ate?” Adam was surprised Ronan didn’t fit an expletive somewhere in the sentence. 

“I don’t know, like, Thursday?” Adam’s voice was quiet. 

“Jesus Mary and Joseph,” Ronan said under his breath, shaking his head, again with that expression that Adam couldn’t place. “You’re aware it’s Sunday afternoon, right?”  
Adam nodded. 

“Well, if I wasn’t going to make you eat before, I sure fucking am now.” Ronan started walking again, taking over Adam, but glancing back every few steps until his boyfriend was by his side again.


	2. Chapter 2

Adam sat on the counter in the kitchen, and watched Ronan cook. Cooking wasn’t exactly something Adam had expected to ever see Ronan do, but he supposed that living alone with just a child and a bird for company didn’t really leave many other options. 

Ronan talked while he worked, mostly telling more stories from the months Adam had spent away, sometimes telling Adam what he was doing, explaining the recipe, because Adam had asked to be told when Ronan had got the ingredients out. He didn’t really know why he wanted to know, it just made him feel better about eating it when he knew. He felt guilty for making Ronan go to this much effort. Every time he caught Ronan’s eye, Ronan was looking at him like he was going to shatter at any second. 

There really _wasn’t_ anything wrong. It wasn’t like Adam had _meant_ to lose so much weight. What he had told Ronan was the truth; he just didn’t feel like he had time to worry about eating on top of everything else he had to do. But then again, the first time he had realised he could see the bones in his wrists more clearly than usual, the first time he went to bed knowing he hadn’t eaten a thing all day, he hadn’t exactly minded. He felt kind of proud. And at first that pride had come from knowing he’d worked hard, that he was trying his best to do well and to make something of himself, but then it had gotten mixed up with the feelings of hunger and light-headedness and he had started to feel proud about those, too. When he ate, he knew he’d spent that time not working, or at least not concentrating on his work as much as he should, and he felt guilty about that. But then that had got mixed up too, and he felt guilty about the food itself rather than just about the work. 

And he’d thought that it would go away once he was back here, knowing he didn’t have to do anything if he didn’t want to, but it was still there. 

So yeah, maybe there actually was something wrong. 

Ronan was finished quicker than Adam thought he would be- he’d just made pasta, but he’d made the tomato sauce himself from scratch. He reached into the cupboard above where Adam was sitting to get out two plates, resting his hand on Adam’s thigh as he did. 

Ronan took the two plates of food into the living room and Adam followed him, sitting down on the couch when Ronan wordlessly gestured for him to do so. Ronan handed Adam a plate, and the two boys sat facing each other, resting their plates on their knees, one of Ronan’s feet resting between Adam’s. 

“Okay?” Ronan asked, and Adam nodded. He put the TV on, and Adam wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to watch it, or because he was trying not to let all of their focus be on the fact that Adam needed to eat. It was probably the latter. Adam could count on one hand the amount of times the TV had been on while he was at the Barns. Adam pushed his food around the plate for a minute, staring at it while Ronan ate slowly, hoping it would make it look like he had eaten more than he really had.   
It didn’t work. 

“Parrish, moving the food around the plate isn’t the same thing as moving it to your mouth and eating it,” Ronan pointed out, as if somehow Adam didn’t know. “Do you need me to feed it to you? Make you eat it myself?”   
Adam sighed and started to say something, but then stopped himself. He didn’t want to waste this food, especially since Ronan had gone to the trouble of making it for him, but it didn’t feel natural to him any more to just start eating. And he knew that if he did start eating, he’d finish the food in probably under five minutes because he really was hungry, and then he’d be embarrassed and feel greedy. 

“Yeah, I gathered that, Ronan,” 

Ronan dropped his sarcastic front immediately. “Please, Adam. What do you need me to do?” 

Adam shrugged. To be fair, Ronan’s suggestion of feeding him did seem to fix the issue of Adam worrying about eating too fast.   
“Feed me?” Adam looked up at Ronan, and he couldn’t help but smirk a little as he said it. Ronan’s eyebrows shot upwards. 

“Seriously?” He waited until Adam nodded. “Okay then.”   
Ronan put his own plate aside, took Adam’s fork from him and stabbed it through a few pieces of pasta. “You want me to do it like a train? You know, you open wide when it goes choo choo so the train can go through the tunnel?”   
Adam laughed, and Ronan smiled at him.   
“Somehow I don’t think that’s necessary.” 

“No fun, Parrish, no fun,” Ronan laughed. When he brought the first forkful of food to meet Adam’s lips, he whispered “choo choo” as Adam opened his mouth. Adam laughed so hard he almost choked. 

“Fuck you, Lynch, the idea of this is not for me to choke!” Adam pretended he was mad, but the fact that he was still laughing gave him away. Ronan put on a mischievous grin and said, “Oh right. Maybe I got this confused with your kinky bedroom habits,”   
Adam gasped exaggeratedly loudly and kicked Ronan’s leg, not hard enough to hurt. 

“Ronan Lynch! That is inappropriate!” Ronan dissolved into fits of laughter and Adam kept up his shocked expression for a few seconds before doing the same.

“Okay, okay, you don’t get to distract me from the task at hand that easily.” Ronan said, making a visible effort to calm himself down. He put some more pasta onto Adam’s fork. 

“Actually Ronan, I’m pretty sure it was you who distracted yourself.”   
Ronan shrugged and nudged Adam’s mouth with the fork. Adam ate again, and Ronan smiled. The next few minutes went equally hilariously, but eventually the boys settled down, and Adam turned around to sit between Ronan’s legs, leaning on his boyfriend’s chest as he fed him. When Adam’s food was finished, Ronan ate his own, and leaned down to kiss Adam’s forehead. 

“You okay?”   
Adam nodded, messing up his hair as he was still leaning against Ronan. “Thank you,” he said, quietly.   
Ronan replied by kissing his head again, and then moving to kiss him on the lips, and then the two boys fell into a comfortable silence. 

Adam fell asleep easily for the first time in a while, and for the first time in even longer with a comfortably full stomach. 

Ronan thought to himself that he would do anything to make this boy happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think I'm going to do at least one more chapter for this. I want to write something that's just pure fluff, and I also want Opal to appear, because she can't just spend the entire time in her room. Maybe she will 'help' the boys bake something. Lemme know what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opal eats everything in sight, and Ronan is surprised by Adam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, but to make up for it this chapter is almost the length of the other two combined.

Later on that night, Ronan had carried Adam to their room, and sat on the bed next to him while he slept. Eventually he had fallen asleep too, and when he woke up, Adam was still sleeping. 

This wasn’t surprising considering he had told Ronan he felt just as bad about sleeping as he did about eating. Ronan got out of bed, careful not to take the sheets off Adam or accidentally wake him up. As Ronan left, Adam shifted, turning onto his side and raising one of his hands so that it rested on the pillow next to his face, palm up. The slight curl of Adam’s fingers as if they were around something meant Ronan had to resist the urge to reach out and grasp Adam’s hand in his own. 

His stomach rumbled. He didn’t know when Adam was likely to wake up, but he wanted breakfast. It was almost 10AM- he could eat now, but he didn’t know if Adam would be persuaded to eat alone if he got up before lunchtime. They could always just have brunch, he supposed. Technically having breakfast twice had never hurt anyone. 

As he walked down the stairs, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he heard a loud, metallic crash from the kitchen. 

“Opal?” he called out, a warning in his tone. He didn’t want Adam woken up when he so clearly needed the sleep. 

“Kerah!” came the excitable response from the kitchen, and a second later, Opal burst through the kitchen door with half a fork in her mouth, wielding a large frying pan that she looked dangerously close to dropping on her own hooves. “I want pancakes but I can’t reach!” The tiny girl’s eyes were wide and pleading as she stared up at Ronan, who was still halfway up the stairs. He sighed.  
As he walked past her towards the kitchen, she stumbled and almost dropped the pan, catching it with both hands a seconds after she lost her grip. Ronan turned around and snatched it from her, glaring. 

“Don’t fucking do that.” 

Opal stuck out her tongue at him. Ronan obligingly started to make pancake batter, while Opal finished eating the fork she had been chewing on. Ronan would have to buy more cutlery soon if she carried on consuming it at such a rate. Almost as if she had read his thoughts, she picked up the spoon that he had used for the flour and bit the handle.  
Ronan tried to make a grab for the spoon before she did too much damage to it, but she dodged out of the way and almost fell onto the stove. 

“I’m hungry!” Opal whined. Ronan rolled his eyes.  
“Yes, that’s why I’m making you real food. A metal spoon is not fucking food, you imbecile.” He glared at her, and was just met with a pathetic pout.  
“Adam wouldn’t stop me from eating,” 

Ronan rolled his eyes. No, he wouldn’t, ironically. He turned back to the pancake mix and checked whether the stove had heated up enough to cook the batter, and Opal used the time that she wasn’t in Ronan’s direct line of sight to bolt out of the room. Ronan shook his head but didn’t pay her any attention. Until she came back again, loudly chattering away, dragging a still sleep-deprived Adam behind her. Adam smiled sleepily at Ronan. Ronan spoke to Adam while glaring down at Opal. 

“Did this little shit wake you up?” Opal’s response to Ronan’s glare was simply to glare back, and swallow the rest of the spoon. Adam yawned. 

“It’s fine, Ro, really. It’s late anyway.” He sat down at the kitchen table, running his fingers through his messy hair before resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand. Ronan wanted to tell him to go back to bed, but he was too busy noticing how Adam’s tiny wrist looked as if it could easily break trying to hold the weight of Adam’s head. And his upper arms were barely any wider than his forearms any more. Ronan’s breath caught a little in his throat. Should he take Adam to talk to someone? He promised himself that he would, if he couldn’t fix this himself. He’d done an okay job last night, he thought. He was proud of Adam for that. 

He couldn’t pretend he understood what was happening in Adam’s mind right now, but he did know it must have been awful to tear the strongest boy he knew down like this. He forced his attention back to the food, so that he didn’t stare for too long. The stove was heated up now, anyway. He didn’t know why they didn’t just have a dream stove that you didn’t have to wait for. They had pretty much everything else. 

“Who wants pancakes?”  
Opal lit up at this, and started bouncing up and down in the chair she had taken next to Adam. 

“Wait, wait!” She exclaimed suddenly, and dashed off upstairs to perform some mysterious task. 

“Want some, Parrish?” Ronan asked, even though he had already put the batter into the pan for the pancake that he fully intended for Adam to eat. Adam shook his head. 

“I’m alright, thanks.” 

Ronan suppressed his instinct to say something harsh or sarcastic. That wasn’t going to help. He had no idea what would help, but he wasn’t going to persuade Adam to do anything by getting into a fight. He could just go straight to pleading, but that seemed a bit too dramatic, even for this. Ronan didn’t particularly want Adam to know just how shaken he was. He didn't want to guilt trip him into doing something he wasn't comfortable with doing. 

“Don’t be stupid. You have to eat something.” His voice sounded strained from the effort it took to try to keep it neutral. He turned around to look at Adam, who was gazing intensely down at the table. “Just one?” If Adam would eat just something, Ronan could consider that a success. He was surprised that he had understood, or potentially just assumed, how much of a battle this might be despite Adam only having come home the day before. 

Opal chose that moment to shoot back into the kitchen, specifically over to the stove, knocking Ronan out of her way in her haste to get to the almost-cooked pancake. Before Ronan had a chance to stop her, she had raised her arms over her head to reach the top of the stove and sprinkled a mixture of crushed leaves, twigs, and brightly coloured petals into the frying pan. She grinned up at Ronan.  
Ronan was too surprised and frustrated for a split second to say anything, but in that second Adam had started laughing hysterically, and Opal had started trying to serve up the pancake to herself on a paper plate she had procured from somewhere. They didn’t even own paper plates, as far as Ronan knew. Instead of reprimanding Opal immediately, he glanced over at Adam, slightly shocked again by his explosive reaction. 

“What the fuck?” This was addressed to both of them, but he was still looking at Adam. 

“It was just… the look on your face…!” Adam answered in between giggles. Ronan rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Normally his smiles were shark-like, or just smirks, but this one was just a humorous smile born of Adam’s infectious mirth. He turned back to the ruined pancake, which was starting to brown slightly too much now. That was fine. Opal wouldn’t care. Her starter had been made of metal. He grabbed a spatula from the pot in the corner of the work surface and a real plate. Opal seemed put out about the plate when Ronan handed her the food. 

“But what am I gonna do with the paper one?” She pouted. 

“I don’t know, eat it. I really don’t care.” 

Ronan wished it was surprising that Opal ate the entire paper plate before she even started on her foliage-infused pancake.  
He poured some more batter into the pan and looked back at Adam. _Please_. He mouthed it, so that Opal wouldn’t hear him begging and ask what was going on. Adam seemed to hesitate for a moment before nodding. Ronan nodded back and turned to watch the food. Thankfully, Opal didn’t feel the need to add plants again. 

Once Ronan gave Adam the food it took him a few minutes to start eating and Ronan tried not to stare, but he was sure Adam noticed the tension leave his shoulders once he cleared his plate. When Ronan offered another pancake, Adam refused, but one was better than nothing. Ronan shuffled his chair towards Adam’s a little and rested his hand on the other boy’s thigh underneath the table.  
The three of them talked for a while, Opal’s input rarely making sense even when it was in English, but it was nice all the same. Ronan was relaxed, and he could tell Adam was too, which was the most important thing. 

“Can I have another pancake? I still have more.” Opal asked suddenly, and Ronan was confused for a second until he looked across at her and saw she was clutching another handful of leaves and twigs. He sighed. 

“Couldn’t you have said so before I put the fucking batter away?”  
Opal just shrugged. She didn’t seem bothered by Ronan’s sudden annoyance- she had known him the entire time she’d existed, after all. Ronan breathed another, exaggerated sigh as he removed his hand from Adam’s and made to get up.  
Adam stopped him before he could leave with a hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s okay, I’ll get it.”  
Ronan just looked at him and raised one eyebrow. Not that he didn’t love how much Adam had always cared for Opal. 

“You sure?” Adam nodded. 

“Yeah, I want another one myself anyway.” He replied as he took the rest of the pancake mix back out from the fridge. He said it so casually, but Ronan felt a burst of pride warm his whole body. Maybe this really was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was supposed to be purely fluff, and it mostly is, but there had to be some sad Adam in there. I'm going to do an epilogue, but would you guys want another chapter in between? And if so do you want more fluff or more angst?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! This is a vent fic for all intents and purposes, so when I started writing it I was feeling pretty bad (and I actually think that's reflected in the quality of the first couple chapters). So as I've been trying to get back from that little hiccup, it was kind of triggering to write this especially considering the content of this chapter (extra trigger warning for self-induced vomiting!!) but I felt okay enough today that I could finish the chapter off. I hope you enjoy!

The next few days went much the same way- Adam would make excuses not to eat, and Ronan wouldn’t force him to, but he did gently pressure him to have at least something most mealtimes. However, Ronan had begun to suspect that when Adam ate, he didn’t always keep the food down. 

This suspicion arose from the consistent bathroom trips and showers straight after meals, how Adam always looked slightly pale and washed out afterwards, and the redness around the knuckles of the first two fingers on Adam’s right hand. And the fact that when Adam finished his showers, the bathroom usually smelled either slightly acidic, or of far too much air freshener. 

If Ronan had thought just the reluctance to eat was bad, he didn’t even know what to think about this. 

He and Adam hadn’t properly spoken about what was happening since the first day that Adam returned to the Barns, but this new development definitely needed to be addressed before anything worse could happen. On Thursday night, after Opal had gone to sleep with the help of a bedtime story from Adam, Ronan decided to talk.  
The two boys were on Ronan’s bed (which was really Adam’s bed too when he was at the Barns), arms around each other and Adam’s head resting in the crook of Ronan’s neck. 

“Hey, Adam?” Ronan asked, in a tone much softer than would typically be expected of him.  
Adam sat up a bit so that he could see Ronan’s face, and gave him a questioning look. 

“Yeah?” He sounded uncertain, as if he knew that what was coming wasn’t exactly going to be a comfortable conversation. Ronan hesitated. 

“I know you’re not okay. Can you tell me what’s going on?”  
Adam shuffled backwards, away from Ronan, and Ronan’s arms ached with the loss of him. Ronan looked across at him, but Adam couldn’t seem to meet his eyes. They stayed like this for what felt like twenty minutes, but was probably more like twenty seconds. 

“Have you been making yourself sick?” This came out more harshly than Ronan wanted it to. 

Adam flinched. 

“I’m sorry, Ro.” His voice shook, and Ronan felt his heart lurch. He wanted to comfort him, but after Adam had moved away Ronan wasn’t sure how close he wanted him while they talked about this.  
“Don’t apologise. I just want you to tell me why.” Maybe he was pushing too much. He wanted Adam to trust him, but how could he get him to do that when he hadn’t come to him already? Had he done something that had made Adam want to hide this from him? His stomach twisted with anxiety. 

Adam must have sensed this, because he looked up momentarily and said; “It’s not your fault.”  
Ronan didn’t reply immediately, just waited to see if Adam was going to carry on. He had made himself afraid of being too pushy, in case it made Adam shut down completely. Right now it looked as if he was thinking about saying something, and Ronan didn’t want to accidentally do something to change that. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to get rid of it.” 

“Get rid of what?” Ronan was confused. 

“I don’t know how to explain it. It makes sense in my head, but… I don’t know, guilt? But not just that, it’s like… I just feel so gross like I’m angry with myself or my body or, like somehow I’ve changed as a person when I eat. That’s a really bad explanation, I’m sorry.”  
Adam was picking at the skin around his fingernails, and Ronan reached out to stop him, placing a hand over both of his. Adam looked up again, and kept Ronan’s gaze this time. 

“Hey. Don’t apologise to me. I’m not the one you’re hurting, okay? Well I mean indirectly you kind of are, but not deliberately. Or physically.”  
Adam shook his head. 

“No, I don’t want you to worry. You have enough to think about already without me adding to it all. If I can’t even explain to myself properly what the matter is then how am I supposed to explain it to you in a way you can do anything about? It’s best for you to just not have to worry about it.” 

“You think I’m going to stop worrying if you just don’t talk to me? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” Ronan felt close to tears. He felt helpless, and like he wanted to somehow hold all of Adam in his arms at once, so that no part of him was left exposed, and keep him there so that nothing bad could happen to him and he would never get hurt. He had to look away from Adam so that he wouldn’t try to do just that.  
He managed to restrain himself, until he heard Adam sniff. From the corner of his eye he saw a tear land on Adam’s hand, and then drip across his palm and onto the duvet beneath. 

“Fuck’s sake, Parrish,” Ronan breathed.  
He pushed himself forwards so that he was against Adam, and pulled the other boy into his lap. He wrapped his arms round Adam’s shoulders and as Adam sobbed into his shirt, he placed a hand on the back of his neck and whispered reassurances into his hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Adam gasped between sobs, and Ronan shook his head. 

“No, you shut up. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” 

“I do though, I do,” Adam objected, holding tighter onto Ronan. Ronan didn’t say anything, but waited for Adam’s shoulders to stop shaking before he placed a hand softly on his cheek. 

“You don’t have to apologise. Just let me help you. Or let someone else help you. But just don’t carry on doing this, okay? And be honest with me. You know I can’t lose you, Adam.”  
Adam nodded. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and sniffed. 

“Yeah. I mean, but I don’t know what to do, I just-” Ronan cut him off with a look as he started to well up again. He moved his hand to underneath Adam’s chin, and moved his head so that he could reach his lips for a kiss. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. That’s what I’m helping for, right, you don’t have to figure the whole thing out yourself.”  
Adam nodded again, and took a deep, rattling breath. He loosened his hold on Ronan a little, and Ronan did the same, allowing Adam to sit straighter and take another breath. 

“You good?” Ronan asked. 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. Do you want to talk now about what we do, or later?” Ronan didn’t really want to put the rest of this conversation off, but at the same time, just having Adam agree to be honest and to try to get better was already more than he had hoped for. He hadn’t wanted Adam to have a twenty minute breakdown, but all in all the conversation hadn’t been the disaster that he hadn’t been able to help but envision.  
If they left this until later though, Ronan was afraid that it would be too late. It was an unreasonable fear, but at the very least it gave time for Adam to skip another meal, or make himself throw up another time. Ronan didn’t want any harm to come to Adam. He was still overwhelmed by the instinct to protect. And also, Adam could change his mind about allowing someone to help. He hadn’t agreed to anything specific, so if Ronan tried to help and Adam didn’t want it, he would be rightly able to refuse help, without Ronan really having any right to get upset about it. 

“Talk now, I guess.” Some of the tension left Ronan’s body, and he sighed. 

“Okay.” 

“Do you want me to talk to like, a psychologist or whatever, or just to you?” Adam had moved off Ronan’s lap, but he now linked one of his ankles with Ronan’s so that they were still in contact. Ronan looked from Adam’s face down to their tangled legs. 

“Whatever you want, man, but maybe you need someone who knows their stuff, you know? I’ll help you whatever way I can but, if we don’t know what we’re fighting, then how can we fight it, right? I don’t know if I know how to help you figure that stuff out.” Ronan got quieter as he spoke, finishing in an almost apologetic tone. “I’m not trying to say I won’t try or anything but- fuck, you know what I mean.”  
Adam smiled softly. 

“I know what you mean. I agree.” 

“Good. And you should tell me when you feel bad. If you want to make yourself sick I can try to distract you, I’ll help you however you want.” 

“Okay. I will.” Adam replied. Ronan nodded. 

“Are you okay?” Ronan frowned, still worried, and reached for Adam’s hand. Adam held onto Ronan’s hand and squeezed it gently. 

“I am, right now. Thank you.” The two boys smiled at each other, not really out of true happiness, because this was not a conversation you were happy after, but mostly to reassure each other that they were there, and that they weren’t not okay. 

“Maybe we can start looking for someone you can talk to later, or tomorrow. Whoever you need, you know I’ll pay for it.” Immediately after he said it, Ronan worried that Adam would reject the offer, and Adam did frown, but then nodded. 

“Thank you.” Once upon a time it would have been impossible to get Adam to accept this help, however necessary it was. Ronan was more grateful than he could express that Adam was willing to work with him now. He couldn’t think of anything that could possibly be more important than Adam’s wellbeing. 

“I love you.” Adam said. Ronan immediately moved closer to him, and held his other hand. 

“Hey. I love you too, Parrish. Don’t forget that.” Adam blushed, and looked down at their hands. 

“Jesus, how long have we been together now? And I still make you blush.” Ronan teased. Adam scoffed and pulled his hands away from Ronan’s, moving to get into bed properly. Ronan followed, and when both of them were under the covers, he lay on his side facing Adam and returned his arm to around his boyfriend’s shoulders. Adam turned onto his side as well so that he and Ronan were face to face, and smirked. 

“Whatever, idiot. Let’s get some rest.”  
They didn’t get to sleep for a while after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. the last sentence isn't implying they fucked, unless you want them to. If you aren't comfortable with that after such an emotional chapter, then they just stuck to making out ;)


End file.
